Loving and Learning in the Nest
We don't use worksheets or busy work or cute activities in our home. When my children are working on formal lessons, I want them to be engaged with books and ideas and math problems, not just busy. It doesn't differ much in the early years. I present books and ideas from nature. They are engaged, but keeping them busy is not something I aim for. People often ask me how to keep little Read More
I was in the camp of "you don't need a curriculum for your young child" until I had a young child who needed a curriculum. He didn't need instruction, but structure. We tried many options, and I realized that I wanted a different feeling in our home for the early years. Playful experiences. A life fed on ideas. Not a lesser amount of formal lessons. Nothing formal at Read More
Fall is coming quickly, which means the aroma of pumpkin spice and apple pie will soon fill kitchens across America. Pictures of smiling children picking the perfect pumpkin will fill up my Instagram feed. And cute ways to study apples and pumpkins will fill up Pinterest boards. My eye often catches on those sweet little unit studies, but then I think of some Charlotte Mason ideas that keep me Read More
"I'm not good at this- why should I try?" "This is too hard for me." "I'm not a math person." These are phrases that can break a mama's heart! Hearing our children say these negative things about their abilities is disheartening. They are the sign of a fixed mindset- the idea that we are born with certain capacities and we can't change that. The opposite of a fixed mindset, a growth Read More
If you've followed My Little Robins for a while, you might have noticed the transformation that our early years "preschool" went through last year. I started out the year wanting a strict schedule to structure our days- and the pendulum swung the opposite way a few months later. Not only did we not have a schedule, we pretty much just played outside or in all day long (which was AMAZING for us, Read More
